THE CRIME CREATES AN INTERNATIONAL SENSATION--DISCOVERY OF THE LONELY COTTAGE WHERE THE IRISH NATIONALIST MET HIS DEATH--EVIDENCES OF A TERRIBLE STRUGGLE--THE TELLTALE BLOOD STAINS AND BROKEN FURNITURE--THE MYSTERIOUS TENANTS AND THEIR MOVEMENTS--THE FURNITURE BOUGHT AND CARTED TO THE ASSASSINS' DEN--WHAT MILKMAN MERTES SAW--THE PLOT AS OUTLINED BY THE SURROUNDINGS--ICEMAN O'SULLIVAN UNDER SURVEILLANCE. The discovery of the body of the missing physician under such appalling circumstances, and with the surrounding evidences that a crime of the foulest character had been committed, created a most profound sensation, not only among all classes and nationalities in cosmopolitan Chicago, but also in Irish-American circles throughout the United States, and among the countrymen of the murdered man across the Atlantic. Telegrams and letters, breathing indignation and horror, and urging that no stone be left unturned to the end that the assassins might be run to earth and brought to justice, poured in on the dead man's friends from the four quarters of the continent, as well as from abroad. The scoffers--those who all along had scouted the theory of foul play, and had voiced the stories so artfully concocted by the plotters that the physician had left Chicago of his own free will, and with objects and motives that would, sooner or later, be revealed--were, in a figurative sense, deprived of the power of speech. In the presence of the hacked and decomposing body of the man they had maligned they had not a word to say. THE LONELY SCENE OF THE MURDER. Startling developments were destined from this time on to follow each other in rapid succession. Less than twenty-four hours after all that was mortal of Dr. Cronin had been taken from the Lake View man-hole, the place where his life's blood had been shed was discovered, and the officers of the law were in possession of important clues which promised to lead to the capture of the murderers. It was a lonely place that the assassins of the Irish Nationalist had chosen to perform their bloody work. Patrick O'Sullivan, the ice man, resided in a comfortable house on the corner of Bosworth and Roscoe Streets, in Lake View, less than two miles from the man-hole that had been converted by the murderers into a temporary tomb. Ample grounds surrounded the residence, while barns, sheds and out-houses filled up most of the ground in the rear. The corner lot back of these structures was vacant, but immediately next, facing Ashland Avenue almost in a straight line with O'Sullivan's house, and less than 150 feet away, stood a vacant cottage. It was a one-story and basement, with an unfinished attic, weather-beaten and worn. The street entrance led up a flight of wood stairs, while access to the rear could only be obtained by another flight. The cottage stood fenced in in a narrow lot, crowded into which, not fifty feet away, in the rear, was a still smaller house. [Illustration: SCENE OF THE TRAGEDY.]